WEST VALLEY CITY — Richard Wood has had the same job since 1949, but his experience is just as sweet as it was the day he started.
Shortly before Wood came home from a few years of military service and a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his parents, George and Leah Wood, decided to leave behind the grocery business and try their hand at candy and ice cream. The Woods told their son when he returned to start scooping ice cream and making root beer floats, and he’s been there ever since.
“I’m still here making candy,” Richard Wood said in an interview with the Deseret News, “and I’m still going strong today.”
Fernwood Candy started as a small family-run business in Salt Lake City in 1947 and has stayed that way as Richard Wood and his wife, Lorraine, continue the tradition established by his parents almost seven decades ago. And although times have changed, Lorraine Wood said the company holds true to the things that make it “unique.”
“Anything we make, anything that has the Fernwood name to it, people depend on it being fine and good,” she said.
“I think the thing that settles in people’s mind is that Fernwood has a great name of quality, service and a reputation of continuation of the name,” her husband added. “The name Fernwood is a legacy in this area.”
The name behind the legacy came from a combination of the family’s last name and the street George and Leah had first lived on when they were newlyweds.
The company’s website, fernwoodcandy.com, tells that when it came time for the founders to select the name, George turned to Leah and said, “Momma, would you have ever dreamed when we were newlyweds, in our little honeymoon cottage on Fern Street, near the state Capitol building, that we would someday be in the ice cream and candy business?”
To which Leah replied, “Maybe we ought to call the business Fernwood. Fern Street was mighty sweet, and we hope that is what our business will be, and it surely would be another romantic beginning.”
While the couple had a dream to drive them, the realization of that dream was not without sacrifice. Richard Wood said his father strongly believed that they should not go into debt to start their new venture, so when it came time to purchase expensive equipment, they sold their furniture to make ends meet. At one point, George Wood even asked his wife to sell her beloved piano so they could acquire a ball beater to make chocolate centers.
“That took a lot of courage for my mother to say OK, but that’s what happened,” Richard Wood said. “We got our first big piece of equipment and didn’t go into debt.”
Leah Wood was able to purchase a new piano once the company found its foothold. Fernwood Candy eventually grew to include 10 candy and ice cream retail stores and to employ over 100 people.
By about 1990, Fernwood changed its focus solely to candy as product demand and economic times changed.
“In about the mid-’80s, the ice milk and yogurt came in and people stopped eating ice cream, so pretty much all of the ice cream stores in Salt Lake closed,” Wood explained.
The company closed down its ice cream shops and many of its retail stores but continues to maintain year-round shops in West Valley City and Holladay. It also opens temporary locations throughout the Salt Lake Valley near Christmas and Easter, and its products are available in many local grocery stores.
But the Woods believe the company has survived the changes thanks to the product that Richard Wood said has proven to be “the major thrust” behind the company’s success: its Mint Sandwiches, a product that has been a staple for the company since 1959.
Richard Wood said the idea came from a trip his parents took to the East Coast to attend a confectioners convention. They happened upon a small candy shop as they traveled a road between Maine and Florida, and the owner offered to teach them how to make a new item he had recently learned to make himself. When he heard they were from Utah, he gave them the recipe for the Mint Sandwiches to take home with them since he knew they would not be in a competing market.
“George and Leah Wood were the ones who brought that famous recipe home,” Richard Wood said. “We’ve had so many wonderful employees and good management in my wife, Lorraine, but I think that’s what’s kept us going is the fact that we have the name Fernwood and the Chocolate Mint Sandwiches.”
Through the years, Richard Wood has relied on the foundation laid by his parents.
“I think the thing that both my father and my mother taught me was that one of the most important things you learn in your life is you learn how to work,” Richard Wood said.
With none of their children or grandchildren currently involved in the business, the Woods said they are often asked what’s next for the company. For now, Lorraine Wood says they are just concerned with continuing to help people build their own “Fernwood memory.”
“We’re still onboard ship,” Richard Wood added. We’ve had many ups and downs along the way, but we have such a good reputation and we are a good team together.”
Email: wbutters@deseretnews.com, Twitter: WhitneyButters